Pearsauce

What do you get when you simmer very ripe peeled pears for an hour and then process in the food processor? Not applesauce, but PEARSAUCE! (But it looks just like applesauce!) I tasted it and it's really delicious, not to mention it made my kitchen smell like a bakery, and McKenna (after the initial nose wrinkling at a new food) ate it right up. Score! I stopped at Tom Thumb tonight and picked up four very ripe pears to add to the one I bought a few days ago, and they seemed to be a hit with the princess.

Unfortunately, I'm having to give up on my wishes to give McKenna nothing but organic food. There's just not enough stuff out there around here and I don't have time to dash to Whole Foods or Central Market every four days to get stuff for her. For right now, I'll just try to do the best I can, wash the fruits and veggies very well, peel the skins, and once I have her foods kind of down, I'll start making trips over there to get all her stuff at once. At least her rice is organic and the sweet potatoes I bought the other night are organic. It's just so hit or miss.

Okay, so I admit I'm probably having WAY too much fun with this baby food endeavor, but it is just great to make her food and just gives me SUCH a great feeling. I have no idea if I'm saving a lot of money or what, and I don't really care that much...it's just so neat to be able to make her food from scratch and actually see her eat it.

Although...the trade off here is that I suspect McKenna's starting to wean herself just a bit. I noticed both times that I nursed her today that she finished in about ten minutes and wasn't terribly interested in just hanging out and snuggling. She just wanted to finish and move on. It was the same way this morning. She still drank all her bottles at school and ate both cubes of sweet potatoes that I sent plus pears tonight for dinner.

If things continue to go well with the food the rest of the week, I'm going to increase her bottles to 8 oz next Monday and start sending TWO meals to school with her during the day. She's just growing like it's nobody's business! I love it!

So, she's six and a half months now. I still have quite a few foods that I can introduce over the next few weeks. I'm sticking pretty strongly to the guide in the Super Baby Food book that I got as far as when to introduce foods. I'm going to ask her pediatrician on Friday about plain yogurt, but if that's a no-go, I'm going to work on adding apples, nectarines, peaches, mango, papaya and oatmeal to her menu over the next couple of weeks. This is of course assuming that I can find them! I'll just see what I can do!